Groupe Épopée

Épopée is a cinema action group based in Montreal that autonomously carries out projects addressing present-day situations. The group disseminates its work through public talks and discussions, web distribution and art gallery installations. Since 2005, Épopée has focused on persons subjected to exclusion by the State and violence by its police. The group has created film projects in collaboration with sex workers and drug users, students and activists during and after the 2012 Québec Student Strike, and lately with a group of Yanomami in the Brazilian Amazon. Épopée emerged spontaneously between 2005 and 2007 during the filming of the documentary Men for Sale (2008), that deals with drug use and male sex workers. Fed up with being documented, the participants made clear their desire to create fictional narratives and their own films. The project started with writing workshops that transformed into a website (epopee.me) that presents short films written and acted out by the participants. An installation, The State of Things (2012), three feature films, The State of the Moment (2012), The State of the World (2012), and Love in the Time of Civil War (2014), all originated in the sex worker project. The collective is anonymous.